[johnl1479]

> For schools, some to check out would be Georgia Tech, University of Washington's Master's of HCI, Indiana University, University of Michigan iSchool, and (of course) Carnegie Mellon's Master's of HCI.

As a graduate of University of Washington's Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) master's program, I would recommend that if you are interested in understanding 'what' makes a good UI or UX instead of 'how' to make a good UI or UX.

[sizzle]

Too bad a lot of jobs now will hire the 10 week General Assembly UX grad with flashy dribblesque portfolio, that can produce visual and graphic design assets that heavily copy UX patterns from other apps or just follow material design/ apple human interface guidelines verbatim and let the UX researchers figure out usability and design recommendations based off user testing.

How has HCI given you an advantage over a UX bootcamp grad that can speak the lingo and mastered Photoshop/sketch?

[johnl1479]

I would consider copying patterns and Material or Apple HIGs to be the 'how' [to build a good UI or UX] I mentioned previously: those are artifacts produced by others who I would consider have good understanding and experience in 'what' makes a good UI or UX.

I think my advantage is being more aligned with the 'what'. A UX bootcamper could come in and whip something up quickly that looks pretty and win over the hearts and minds of the project sponsors, but (I assume) said bootcamp isn't teaching different theories of cognition or offering practical experience in designing studies in which to test some new interaction.